7 Answers
7

In the mission where you retrieve the skeleton key, you have 2 companions who "pass out" when they have no health left and come back when their health regenerates. Is this the exeption to the rule?
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CoomieNov 15 '11 at 3:42

@Coomie I've found that most NPCs (including villagers who foolishly would attack dragons) go into a wounded state when reduced to minimal health. From this state, only players can kill them. You wouldn't happen to be using some sort of friendly fire and accidentally kill your followers, would you?
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Raven Dreamer♦Nov 15 '11 at 4:18

@RavenDreamer I deal in fire - a lot. So there's a good chance. But hang on a second, I see villagers kill thieves all the time...
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CoomieNov 15 '11 at 4:32

3

@Coomie most unique npcs. I've seen town guards die to dragons by the truckload.
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Raven Dreamer♦Nov 15 '11 at 5:49

This works for the PC. I have searched for the same problem then finally after trial and error of about 50+ codes I found the code for retrieving an NPC. If the NPC is dead you do NOT use Resurrect. The code doesn't seem to be working as intended at the moment. Instead you use:

player.placeatme "BaseID"

So an example of this would be if Alvor died and I needed to bring him back. This is what it would look like:

player.placeatme 00013475

You would enter that into console exactly how it is shown above. You enter console by pressing the tilda key (~). Hope this helps!

Chris YOU ARE MY HERO! A forest troll came into Dawnstar and killed half of the population. I was like no!!! But then I gladly found your answer, thanks so much!! T_T out of happiness
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user15292Nov 25 '11 at 19:34

A heads-up on the placeatme command: "Using this code will instantly summon an instance of an object or NPC at your position. Not recommended for named NPCs. This code uses the Object (base) ID and not specific reference ID as it is creating a new instance of that object/actor in the world; using it with named NPCs can result in duplicates unless the original was somehow removed." - uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Console. Use the prid <RefID> and moveto player commands instead.
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galacticninjaOct 1 '12 at 1:19

Alternatively, you can prevent a companion from dieing by making them immortal, which means whenever their health drops to zero they will craw for a while before standing up. To do so type the following code in your console command:

set essential #BaseID 1

Replace #BaseID for the respective base id of your companion. It can easily be found in the wiki article of your follower. Example for Lydia:

set essential A2C8E 1

To reset to original condition use the same code placing '0' instead of '1'.

Another method to target instead of using prid <refID> is to open up the console and then click on an entity, this will automatically do prid <RefID> for the clicked entity. This is useful if the body of your follower is near you and is visible.

moveto player moves that targeted entity near the vicinity of the player.

Your follower should now be near you after doing this.

If for another weird reason, your follower is still not near your vicinity after doing this, he/she may have been 'disabled' from the game (might happen with NPCs that are long dead), making him/her not appear in the game. Type enable in the console to remedy this. If he/she still isn't up, type resurrect 1 again.